What do we Catholics do now?

By the time I’m done writing this, there will be a new crop of sad or enraging or just plain bizarre headlines about who did what, who knew what, who claims he never knew, who didn’t act and why that was someone else’s fault, and why we should all just relax and trust the hierarchy to do the right thing, starting any minute now.

And of course more and more of our fellow Catholics will burrow even more deeply into their comforting narratives of blame, to shelter them. When we’re confronted with calamity, the easiest thing in the world is to cry, “This is all their fault!” — “they” being the ones whose fault it always is and always has been. This response is worse than useless, but it’s understandable. We want coherence and intelligibility, but right now, it’s so hard to see, in this dim light of calamity. What to do?

3 thoughts on “What do we Catholics do now?”

My name is Jim Cummings and I am a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest. By the time any of you have read this post by Simcha. I will have already spent years worrying that people will blame me and other survivors for what the church is going through today [and tomorrow].
I will have also worried that I and other survivors will be ultimately damned for not keeping our silence. For upsetting the faithful. For going against the church.
There is not one of us survivors that did not think long and hard before coming forward and telling our stories of sexual abuse by a priest to the church.
By the time I submit this comment, many of us will have considered suicide and by the time you read this, some may have succeeded….

Dear James,
I am so incredibly sorry for what you have had to endure as a victim at the hands of the priest’s of our Church. I am heartbroken for you and all the others that have had to travel your similar journey. I know there is nothing that I or others can say that will take away your pain aother than God’s healing grace. My thoughts and prayers are with you.